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RE: [xmca] Understanding is no method but rather a form of communication



I'm not quite sure what emancipatory research is, but it doesn't sound like something I'd feel is not needed.

What I find surprising about this whole discussion is that each and every source invoked is a highly placed theorist. It seems a bit patronizing to me. You also seem to be endorsing the notion of "false consciousness" which I've always found patronizing, elevating the theorist above those purportedly in need of the theorist's emancipation. I'll attach an article that articulates my own views well (not written by me; by Ellen Cushman, who studied disenfranchised people navigating the social system, from the standpoint of someone who herself was homeless at points during her research).

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this whole conversation, in which case I should probably stay out of it. I'm actually on vacation now, so perhaps I should anyhow. p




-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 2:48 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Understanding is no method but rather a form of communication

Hi Peter,

You mentioned two issues: the distinction/division/dichotomy between practitioner and researcher, and whether a practitioner can have a sense of the whole. I think I responded to both, one paragraph on each. 

I'm not sure if you're proposing that emancipatory research is not needed. But one persistent line of thinking in critical theory has been that in people's everyday practices there are what Habermas called "ideologically frozen relations of dependence" which distort our self-understanding, and our understanding of our circumstances. The worker in capitalist society does not grasp the systematic exploitation of labor by capital that this form of life depends on, for example. If you accept that starting place, the question then is what is needed to empower people to transform their circumstances. One proposal, which can be found in Habermas but in others as well, is that what is needed is a sense of the "objective conditions" in which people live. A phrase with its own dangers, for sure, but it generally seems to boil down to a grasp of 'the whole' - the discursive formation, the social field, the forces of production, call it what you will. Just as Vygotsky argued repeatedly for analyses that grasp each part as an aspect of the whole, so did Habermas, though his account of how one goes about identifying the whole was certainly different. Another similarity with Vygotsky, though, was that Habermas argued that this whole should include a reconstruction of the genesis (onto- and socio-) of the objective conditions. I think you'd agree that none of us walks around with an articulated account of our own development; it is something lived, tacit, embodied, not spelled out knowledge. And it seems reasonable to suggest that we can't become truly free as individuals until we have reflected on and articulated our own ontogenesis, and that this process cannot be carried out individually.

Martin

On Jul 18, 2012, at 1:06 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:

> I think I was responding to: I tend to think of it as a claim that a researcher needs something that few if any participants have - a sense of the whole.
> 
> Peter Smagorinsky
> Distinguished Research Professor of English Education Department of 
> Language and Literacy Education The University of Georgia
> 309 Aderhold Hall
> Athens, GA 30602
> 
> Advisor, Journal of Language and Literacy Education                                                       
> Follow JoLLE on twitter @Jolle_uga
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] 
> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 12:38 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Understanding is no method but rather a form of 
> communication
> 
> Peter, I don't think I ever suggested a dichotomy. Rather, a division 
> of labor, or a collaboration, surely. And certainly a practitioner can 
> become a researcher as well, right? One can distinguish between the 
> two roles. A teacher who is in a graduate seminar is not only a 
> teacher. (Though having taught in several schools of education I would 
> add that many graduate seminars seem not to contribute much to a sense 
> of the whole, but that's because they are not in the main dealing with 
> anything like action research.)
> 
> But the basic idea is that anyone who participates in a form of life necessarily has a partial perspective. Take David's example: in any group under attack (and what group is not?) it is an advantage that there is a variety of different understandings to draw on. Each participant knows their own and perhaps a few other of the available understandings. To get to know all of them, one needs to carry out research.
> 
> Martin
> 
> On Jul 18, 2012, at 6:42 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
> 
>> Now I'm puzzled, maybe because my reference point for action research is teacher research. Many of them are quite wizened from experience both in the classroom and from reading, often in graduate seminars. So I'm not buying the dichotomy between practitioners and researchers, or the idea that practitioners have no sense of the whole.
>> 
>> Peter Smagorinsky
>> Distinguished Research Professor of English Education Department of 
>> Language and Literacy Education The University of Georgia
>> 309 Aderhold Hall
>> Athens, GA 30602
>> 
>> Advisor, Journal of Language and Literacy Education                                                       
>> Follow JoLLE on twitter @Jolle_uga
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu 
>> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 8:51 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Understanding is no method but rather a form of 
>> communication
>> 
>> Peter,
>> 
>> This is one of the topics, and a point of disagreement, in the debate between Gadamer and Habermas. The question gets framed as whether one needs something more than the ability to participate in a community of practice in order to conduct research that is transformative, emancipatory. (Not all action research tries to do this, of course.) Gadamer argued that the potential for critique and change is immanent in the practices. Habermas argued that the researcher needs something more. He has changed his position on what exactly this is over the course of his career; his first proposal was that the researcher needs a theory of the distortions that exist in everyday practical activity in order to critique them and change them. I tend to think of it as a claim that a researcher needs something that few if any participants have - a sense of the whole.
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> On Jul 17, 2012, at 2:39 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>> 
>>> So, just wondering, if action research is truly a bottom-up activity, why go to theorists to justify it?
>>> 
>>> Peter Smagorinsky<http://www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/vita/vitaweb.htm>
>>> Distinguished Research
>>> Professor<http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/docs/policies/iga/DRP-Guidelines.p
>>> d
>>> f
>>>> of<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/of> English
>>> Education<http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/english/secondary/index.html>
>>> Department of Language and Literacy
>>> Education<http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/english/secondary/index.html>
>>> The University of Georgia<http://www.uga.edu/>
>>> 309 Aderhold Hall<http://www.coe.uga.edu/about/directions.html>
>>> Athens<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens,_Georgia>,<http://owl.eng
>>> l
>>> i
>>> sh.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/02/>
>>> GA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)>
>>> 30602<http://www.city-data.com/zips/30602.html>
>>> 
>>> Advisor, Journal of Language and Literacy 
>>> Education<http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/>
>>> Follow JoLLE on twitter @Jolle_uga
>>> 
>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 2:23 PM
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Understanding is no method but rather a form of 
>>> communication
>>> 
>>> Hi Larry,
>>> 
>>> I think Gadamer made a valuable contribution to the philosophy and theory of hermeneutics, and showed the importance of interpretation in all fields. But there are, to my thinking, limitations to his analysis that suggest to me that one has to turn elsewhere for a basis for action research. Mainly, there is no place for systematic *mis*understanding in Gadamer's hermeneutics. He presumes a community of like-minded people, united in mutual understanding. it would be nice, I suppose, if life were like that, but surely it is not. In most places there is 'an Other who *is* an object for the subject,' to play with the words you quoted from Gadamer. The debates between Gadamer and Habermas in the 1970s centered around the issue of whether there is a place for critique in hermeneutics.
>>> 
>>> Here's one good summary of the debate:
>>> Mendelson, J. (1979). The Habermas-Gadamer debate. New German Critique, 18, 44-73.
>>> 
>>> Martin
>>> 
>>> On Jul 17, 2012, at 12:58 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I have been reflecting on action research and the turn it took into 
>>>> discussing voice, tone of voice, and the loss or extinguishing of 
>>>> voice when others are marginalized.
>>>> 
>>>> I came across this statement from Gadamer who wrote the foreword to 
>>>> the book "Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics" by Jean Grondin.
>>>> 
>>>> "So, understanding is no method but rather a form of community 
>>>> among those who understand each other. Thus a DIMENSION is OPENED 
>>>> up that is not just one among many FIELDS of inquiry but rather constitutes the PRAXIS OF LIFE.
>>>> 
>>>> Gadamer is exploring the 2nd person voice and putting it play with 
>>>> the 1st person and 3rd person voice.
>>>> 
>>>> I wanted to abstract this dis-position towards the 2nd voice. I 
>>>> want to now embed this statement in its context. Gadamer wrote,
>>>> 
>>>> "But it was only when Dilthey and his school gained influence on 
>>>> the phenomenological movement that understanding was no longer 
>>>> MERELY juxtaposed with conceptualization and explanation."[Gadamer, 
>>>> foreword]
>>>> 
>>>> In other words, understanding came to be seen as constituting the 
>>>> very fundamental structure of human becoming-in-the-world and moved 
>>>> to the very center of philosophy.
>>>> 
>>>> "Thereby subjectivity and self-consciousness lost their primacy. 
>>>> Now there is an Other who is not an object for the subject - but 
>>>> someone to whom we are BOUND in the reciprocations of language and 
>>>> life. So, understanding is no method but rather a form of COMMUNITY 
>>>> among those who understand each other. Thus a dimension is opened 
>>>> up that is not just one among many fields but rather constitutes 
>>>> the praxis of life." [Gadamer, foreword]
>>>> 
>>>> Gadamer's tone of voice may have something to contribute to action research.
>>>> 
>>>> Larry
>>>> __________________________________________
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